Splice Machine Gets Funding for its Real-Time SQL-on-Hadoop Database

Splice Machine can already boast of having the only real-time SQL-on-Hadoop database for Big Data and now they have additional funding to further expand the company’s offerings. We caught up with company CEO, Monte Zweben, to get a better understanding of this unique technology.

insideBIGDATA: Monte, you have a veteran team from some of the biggest companies in the tech world. Please give me a brief history of how all of this talent came together.

Monte Zweben: In my many years as an entrepreneur, I’ve built a very strong network of talented professionals, who often started at big companies but then gravitated towards startups because they were passionate about “getting things done.” With Splice Machine, I was able to re-connect with some of the smartest and most talented people I’ve worked with in the past. It’s great working with people I’ve worked with before because I know there will be a good cultural fit and we can be an incredibly effective team, often completing each other’s sentences. In other cases, I have used my network to find the right people. Not only do network recommendations help you find the best people, but they also provide a huge advantage in recruiting talent in a very competitive market.

insideBIGDATA: What does Splice Machine do exactly?

Monte Zweben: Splice Machine is the only transactional SQL-on-Hadoop database for real-time Big Data applications. It provides application developers and database architects the best of Big Data: the scalability of Hadoop and HBase, the ubiquity of SQL, and the transactional integrity of an RDBMS.

insideBIGDATA: How does this enhance traditional use of MySQL and Oracle databases.

Monte Zweben: By leveraging distributed computing, Splice Machine can scale from terabytes to petabytes by simply adding more commodity servers (i.e., scale out). By contrast, traditional RDBMSs like MySQL and Oracle often require expensive application re-writes or very expensive servers (i.e., scale up) to scale beyond a terabyte of data. Splice Machine is able to provide this scalability without sacrificing the SQL functionality or the ACID compliance that are cornerstones of an RDBMS.

insideBIGDATA: Which market segment are you after and who are your current customers?

Monte Zweben: We are targeting four segments:

1) Replacing MySQL or PostgreSQL databases that “hit the wall” when trying to scale beyond a terabyte of data

2) Replacing Oracle or IBM DB2 databases that become cost-prohibitive to scale with servers that can millions of dollars each.

3) Providing SQL access for customers struggling to get value from their existing Hadoop clusters

Our charter customers are using us to replace MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle and Cassandra databases. They are using Splice Machine for operational applications and real-time analytics in the ad technology, marketing services, telecommunications, financial services and SaaS industries.

insideBIGDATA: Why do companies need real-time analytics?

Monte Zweben: As changes in the market and competitive dynamics continue to accelerate for most companies, we have never met a customer that did not want to make their analytics more real-time, both in speed of delivery and the recency of the information being analyzed. Real-time analytics becomes especially critical when the data can change quickly (e.g., website clicks used to personalize a website in real-time or inventory changes across a large retailer) or there is a need to respond quickly (e.g., identify and stop a network attack).

insideBIGDATA: You just got a rather substantial round of funding. What will this mean for Splice Machine in a technological sense?

From a technological perspective, this new round of funding will enable us to expand our engineering team and accelerate our product roadmap, with a near-term focus on performance and ease of use.